Starting tomorrow, June 22, all my green L.A. lifestyle blogging will happen on my own website, green LA girl.
Though Emerald City will no longer be updated, LATimes.com will always have fresh, green, Pulitzer Prize-winning news reporting from L.A. and beyond on its Environment page . And a new blog called Greenspace, written by the LA Times' environmental reporters, will launch Thursday.
Thanks to Cassandra Davis, Damien Newton, Kathryn Pope, Katie Ricketts and Alex Thompson for contributing guest posts to Emerald City! You can continue following their and my eco-adventures on our respective blogs -- or meet us in person at a future Green Drinks.
>> Internet dating service DateforTrees will plant a tree for each month you pay for its services. A small green incentive to keep looking without ever settling? (via grist)
>> Save some money and find your dates in trains. There are more fellow commuters to meet and mingle with, now that commuter rail ridership's way up in the L.A. area. Earlier: Subway Crush: Like Craigslist's Missed Connections, except for subways.
>> The light-rail-accessible Aquarium of the Pacific is 10 years old and more popular than ever. "At a time when the world's seas are in deep blue trouble, the aquarium assists in local coastal cleanups and fish population surveys." Earlier: TransitPeople and a trip to the aquarium via Metro.
>> Bikes too are getting so popular we now have instructions for ugging them up -- so as to deter thieves. Get instructions for everything from faux rust to mismatched pedals. (via lifehacker)
>> With more people opting for less travel or more eco-travel, airlines are suffering -- but also getting greener, sort of. Wired's Dave Demerjian has the scoop from the Eco-Aviation Conference this week.
>> Would-be Al Gore imitators can pick up PowerPoint tips from Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design, the company behind the slide show featured in "An Inconvenient Truth."
Photo by Liz O. Baylen, L.A. Times
 Have questions about public transit? Check out The Transit Coalition's bulletin boards for answers. The Transit Coalition's a nonprofit that advocates for better public transportation in the greater L.A. area, and the coalition's bulletin boards are used to promote a free exchange of ideas about transit.
Especially compared with the disorganized comment streams of most transit blogs, the Transit Coalition's boards are fairly well organized by topic and transit line, allowing you to quickly follow a discussion about the issues that affect you. More importantly, these boards attract some serious transit wonks -- which means that if you ask a specific question about the Gold Line, you'll likely receive a detailed, informed answer. In fact, your burning questions may already have been answered on the board; just read through the discussion to find out everything you wanted to know about transit in L.A.
According to Bart Reed, executive director of the Transit Coalition, open access to and free exchange of transit information is imperative to creating a viable public transit system. "How do you grow if you don't provide information?" he asks rhetorically. Thus the boards allows a diverse group of people to weigh in -- though the discussion here is of a much higher level than on most blogs, with fewer inane questions of the "why don't they build a monorail from my doorstep to the elevator at my job?" variety.
About 200 people are active participants on the boards; thousands from all over the country are active readers. The Transit Coalition also informs people of transit happenings via its weekly e-newsletter and monthly print newsletter. Reed points to a growing interest in transit issues among Angelenos, and is optimistic about the future of public transit in L.A. "All of these things haven't been in alignment for so very long are finally lining up," Reed says. "This is the year where the citizens of L.A. are frustrated enough that they may actually say yes to something."
Want to get more involved with the Transit Coalition? Everyone's invited to the coalition's monthly meetings; the next one happens June 24, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Philippe The Original, 1001 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, I've never been able to attend these meetings -- because I can't find a viable public transportation method to get me to and from there that late in the evening. Maybe after the subway to the sea gets built ...
 Are e-books like the Kindle (left) and Sony Reader (right) more eco-friendly than paper books? The short answer is that we don't know -- yet. We have a pretty good idea of the carbon footprint of paper books, thanks to a newish study, Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry, released earlier this year by the Book Industry Study Group and the Green Press Initiative. That report concludes each paper U.S. book releases 8.85 pounds of carbon dioxide.
 Unfortunately, the study doesn't cover e-books. "In order to address e-books effectively, I’d need to look at a lifecycle comparison that analyzes the impacts of e-readers vs. paper as a medium," said Tyson Miller, founder and director of the Green Press Initiative, in an interview published on Sustainablog. "I do hope that we can explore much more in-depth in future iterations."
The lack of studies effectively comparing the carbon footprint of paper vs. electronic books hasn't stopped the e-book industry from marketing both e-books and e-readers as eco-friendly products. There's even a Read an E-book Week, which appears to have been started by a couple of e-book writers, who claim on their website that "E-Books Can Help Reduce Your Carbon Footprint."
Sony, too, has been pushing its Sony Reader (right) as an eco-product. In an interview with the Sietch Blog, Rick Clancy, senior vice president for Corporate Communications at Sony, recently recommended the Sony Reader thusly: "Think of all the trees that can be spared if more people read e-books. Another great feature is that the Sony Reader uses very little energy. My understanding is the device can go through about 1,000 page turns without needing to be recharged."
To actually measure the carbon footprint of an e-book, however, would require doing a lifecycle analysis of the e-reader -- including its production methods, materials used, energy required for the reader's use, and recyclability. A future study will likely come up with a ballpark average figure, but variables will remain depending on how one obtains and uses the product (Is the reader charging up the book via solar power or coal power? Will readers discard and buy new e-readers as often as they do cellphones or computers?).
And beyond the paper book to e-book comparison, there's the reading habit comparisons for both. For instance, someone who only reads paper books -- but mostly borrows the books from the library which she gets to by bicycle (that's me) -- will have a vastly different reading carbon footprint than someone who drives their Hummer to the bookstore and buys books printed on virgin paper.
But what all of this got me thinking about is whether people would even use e-books for the same purposes that they do paper books. A while back, I wondered whether or not Google Docs would actually make offices more eco-friendly (I'd gotten an e-mail from a Google person touting Google Docs as eco) since it's unclear how the carbon footprint of "traditional" paper use compares to that of going paperless.
I posed this question to Jamais Cascio, futurist of the Cheeseburger Footprint fame, who said "I guess that the question can only be answered by looking at what you're doing with paper & paperless, and just how fungible the two really are." More on that and a review of the Sony Reader next.
Want pragmatism? Then try "Climate Change In Our World" -- put together by British environmental and meteorological offices -- which shows us medium-case climate scenarios for the future to encourage level-headed preparation for what's to come.
But that's boring, no? If you want the drama of worst-case scenarios that evoke fear and panic, you have to turn to the U.S. -- and even better, to U.S. television.
"Earth 2100," a 2-hour ABC News special set to air this fall, will show how "the 'perfect storm' of climate change, resource depletion, and population growth could converge with catastrophic results." And in case the scary science isn't doom and gloom enough, ABC wants you to imagine and create an even scarier scenario -- on video.
For this "massive online game" that'll be "played" in stages until the "Earth 2100" show airs, ABC doesn't want the boring pragmatic stuff. You're to "imagine the unimaginable," then create a video "report" about it and send it to ABC. These videos "will be woven into an evolving web-based story, and the best ones will be used as the spine of the network primetime show."
First round: What will 2015 look like? ABC sets out a basic scenario for filmmakers to work from, and it doesn't sound good: We're still in Iraq, still not doing much as a nation to address climate change, still building more coal-fired power plants. Closer to home, "wildfires are raging out of control in Colorado and Southern California leaving thousands of people homeless."
Inspired? Make a video "report" and send it in by June 9. The scenarios that emerge from those videos will then be used to create the basic scenario for 2050, and so on for 2070 and 2100.
Just to be clear, despite my poking fun, I'm not saying "Earth 2100" will be a bad show necessarily. It's quite possible that doom and gloom scenarios may spur people into action, though they tend to leave me rather disillusioned and lethargic. It's just that I found "Earth 2100" rather humorously over the top, finding out about it right after trying out the sedate British "Climate Change In Our World." Both are about looking to 2100, both about spurring people to action. But the vastly different approaches seem rather symbolic of the differences I often see between the U.S. and U.K.
What will happen to Earth between now and 2100? And more importantly, how do you get people to care about our climate future? That's what environmentalists, scientists, and even TV people are all asking -- and using everything from Google Earth to online games in an effort to engage people.
Put Google Earth together with British scientists, and you get "Climate Change In Our World," an "interactive animation showing how climate change and global temperature rises could affect our world over the next 100 years." (via Grist) Google Earth fans can now watch a time lapse of the Earth heating up simply by downloading a KML.
I actually found the app a tad disappointing -- but I think it's because I expected way too much. Somehow I thought I'd get animations of cities dramatically getting submerged, lakes drying out to turn into deserts. "Climate Change In Our World" is much less dramatic than that. Mainly, the color of the globe changes -- some areas much faster than others -- to warmer colors as temperatures go up. Plus the app lets you zoom in to different cities to read geographic-specific tidbits of climate predictions. A look at California shows we're really, really, going to need to prepare for severe water shortages.
"Climate Change In Our World" uses medium-case climate scenarios, with the message that the issue at hand now is not so much about preventing climate disaster, but preparing for it. After all, environmental disasters are already happening around the world; a lot of damage has already been done.
Of course, we can take action to prevent worst-case scenarios. And there's a webby new game to get people engaged with those issues too. More about that in the next post.
 "Project Runway" fans: Did you know there's an online shoe design reality show? "FN Shoestar," sponsored by Nine West, recently challenged its designers to create sustainable uppers for a sandal. The result: Pretty crunchy-looking shoes.
"Shoestar" isn't a particularly creative show since it basically copies "Project Runway's" format, down to the inane interviews ("The green challenge is ... definitely challenging," explains one girl). The gaffes are somewhat funnier though, with one girl talking about "fox suede" -- then explaining that "fox" is spelled f-a-u-x.
The designers make eco-mistakes too. For example, Tyvek -- the like-paper-but-stronger-than-paper stuff used to make some FedEx and USPS envelopes -- is no friend of the environment. Like Styrofoam, Tyvek's usually made to create one-use products that unfortunately last forever in landfills (yes, industry people will say Styrofoam and Tyvek are recyclable, but they rarely do get recycled as most cities don't have recycling programs in place for these expensive-to-recycle products that have little to no post-recycling value).
Still, the show covers a bunch of more environmentally-friendly materials used in shoes, so eco-fashionistas might find the episode an interesting crash course in sustainable shoes.
 For cute every-day eco-shoes available today, I highly recommend Simple Shoes' ecoSNEAKS, available for both men and women. These are made of hemp, organic cotton, recycled PET, recycled car tire, and 100% post-consumer paper pulp!
I ordered a pair of the “Stop Global Warming” edition Women’s Retire shoes a month ago, partly because $5 from each $60 pair sold gets donated to StopGlobalWarming.org. Just two days later, the shoes arrived at my doorstep via free shipping. Now, I wear them all the time because they're so comfy -- and because they attract a surprising number of compliments, especially considering that they're just sneakers.
Images courtesy of FN Shoestar and Simple
>> Tesla, the all-electric sports car, opened its first U.S. store in Los Angeles. The grand opening was on May 1; the store's located at 11163 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles.
>> Not all tires are created equal, with some lowering fuel economy by 10% or more! "With no standardized rating available, consumers often unwittingly choose tires that hurt fuel economy." It seems the only way to figure out whether one's tires will allow for better fuel economy than another is by trial and error. Maybe a tire rating site is in order?
>> Riverside gets BikeLids -- which are sort of like covered parking for your bicycle. Since the BikeLid's secured with a U-Lock or padlock, it doesn't seem to offer additional security from theft -- but your bike'll be shielded from the elements.
>> Twitter meets hi-tech home energy conservation. Andy Stanford-Clark of IBM fame Twitters his home energy use stats. According to earth2tech, "The Twitter stream is an exercise in using the data from home automation feeds, and the hope is that, by making energy usage data transparent and easy to digest, it will change consumer behavior and reduce energy consumption." (via Wired Science)
>> See for Yourself: How Greenhouse Gas Emissions will affect the U.S. economy. This Yale website lets you set up economic models using various assumptions, run a cap-and-trade program, and see what the resulting economic impact is. (via grist)
Photo from the Tesla store grand opening by Jeremy Jacquot, used with permission. More of Jeremy's pictures from the event can be found on Flickr.
A new, updated version of nonprofit Redefining Progress' Ecological Footprint Quiz came out -- and so I took it. The result -- I require 1.84 earths!
How could this be? Turns out, a big chunk of my footprint was calculated by things beyond my direct control. According to the FAQ:
There are some portions of your footprint that are not the direct result of your consumption habits. For example, each resident of a city is "responsible" for a portion of the city's infrastructure, such as roads, schools, and government offices, regardless of whether the resident uses those services. In addition, some options that could make your footprint smaller are not available to you as a result of choices on the part of local decision makers, such as reliable and efficient public transportation as an alternative to driving. Therefore, an important path to reducing your footprint is to advocate for more sustainable decisions at all levels of government.
Well, okay then. But the quiz got me wondering if it'd be possible to live in L.A. and have a footprint that'd require just 1 earth or less -- so I took the quiz again basically checking off everything that'd lower my score.
In this imaginary greener life, I moved to a big apartment complex built only with green materials with a 100 square foot edible garden. My imaginary greener self also quit all travel, went vegan, and installed a graywater system for the imaginary garden.
This spartan lifestyle got me down to .98 earths! So I guess it is still possible to live in L.A. and have a sustainable lifestyle according to this calculator -- except we don't have any huge, LEED-certified complexes offering apartments smaller than 500 square feet....
As with most footprint calculators, this quiz tends to be geared toward home-and-car owners, and doesn't offer apartment dwellers extra points for not having a lawn, not buying their own washer / dryer or other appliances, etc.
Still, it's kind of a fun exercise if you have a few minutes to kill at work --
Let me know how many earths you require.
Earlier: My enviro impact score's lower than yours
Soon, it'll be as easy to get public transit directions as it is to get driving directions via Google. By the summer, Angelenos will likely be using Google Transit, a Google Maps-based application that seamlessly links up walking to various public transit modes, to easily plan their bus and train rides in L.A.
Although L.A. transit agencies won't make the Earth Day 2008 challenge deadline proposed by Google, Metro and Metrolink are working hard to get their system info into Google Transit. Both agencies are currently in the testing phase.
Matthew Barrett of the Metro Library says the Metro bus information's ready to go -- and is already being tested -- but that they're waiting to get the rail info in there before the roll out. No firm dates -- aside from the fact that the launch will be after Earth Day -- have been set yet -- but since Metro and Google Transit had a conference call yesterday, more details should come out soon.
Metrolink, for its part, is planning an early May rollout. "Google Transit is a huge opportunity for us," said Francisco Oaxaca, Metrolink's manager of media and external communications, "because we think we're the ones most vulnerable to not having a multi-agency trip planner." Oaxaca pointed out that many Metrolink riders require multiple transfers between different agencies, and often have to go cobble together a route using multiple trip planners from various agencies. Google Transit, by contrast, would give people "an opportunity to plan door to door."
Of course, the success of Google Transit for L.A. requires that ALL of our many transit agencies in the area join Metro and Metrolink to really offer Angelenos a comprehensive trip planner. The OCTA and the Burbank Bus are a step ahead and already in the Google Transit system, but most local agencies are not. The Big Blue Bus, the Culver City Bus, and all the various bus lines also need to format their schedule and fare info to work with the Google Transit system. It's only when all the agencies get involved that riders will be able to take full advantage of both the Google Transit app and L.A.'s network of transit systems.
According to Oaxaca, Google Transit can be a real money saver for transit agencies. Building a trip planner from scratch could cost an agency "easily over $100,000," Oaxaca said, while formatting the transit information to fit into Google Transit cost Metrolink just "several thousand." Oaxaca also noted that once transit agencies put up the front end cost of getting into Google Transit, updates will be painless. "It really takes a lot of the burden off the transit agencies."
So encourage your local transit agency to get on to Google Transit! There's certainly great support for Google Transit among transit riders, as evidenced by a recent MetroRiderLA post and the ensuing 20+ comments. I have a call in to the Big Blue Bus, but haven't heard an update yet. More to come on that soon.
In the meantime, look forward to Metro and Metrolink's debuts on Google Transit. After the initial rollout, Metrolink will work on getting Amtrak information onto Google Transit, since the two agencies have a joint "rail to rail" service that allows passengers to ride either agency's trains interchangeably. Metrolink also plans to start testing its real-time train status function in May. Happy riding.
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